For dogs: less "doggie breath" and MUCH less "wet dog smell".

I agree with Shortstuff that most Vets either don't know or care about pet nutrition being interested only in selling space to pet food manufacturers and getting commissions. However, they can instead sell raw pet food and still get commission as does my Vet. All they have to do is buy a freezer. I can't make my own pet food because I live in a small apartment and don't have the space in my fridge to hold it nor the kitchen space to manufacture it. That's why I buy it from my Vet. And I agree with Deb that my Honey and Freddy are happy, healthy, very active and surprising more affectionate since I introduced raw food. Don't be discouraged if your cats initially refuse raw food. They resist change with a passion, but mine now don't want anything else. It took almost a full year to convince them but I have more patience than they do.

BTW regarding comments about certain cats will eat all the food leaving none for others, I find that Freddy, being the gentleman that he is and showing respect for his elders, will always let Honey eat her fill (even though I place two bowls of food down) before he attempts to eat. Must be some sort of feline pecking order I would think.

Well, I've gotten better about feeding my Siamese low carb. I've found some canned foods that are all meat, and I"m supplementing that with some raw.

I think my puddy tat is looking a little sleeker, but dang its hard to weigh him! I wish I had a scale that would show 10ths of pounds so I could track his progress better.

My dog needed to lose about 10 pounds and build muscle. The vert put him on a green bean diet. He was allowed 2 cups of dog food (the stuff with real meat - not random parts . . . ) and as many green beans a he could enjoy. He lost the weight over a month or so, toned up, got shiny, and funny thing is - he now won't eathis dog food without green beans! We buy them by the gallon! It's really quite funny.

Yes, dogs are carnivores - but feeding them corn and wheat based dog foods with animal parts in them is not doing justice to a carnivore. It's like giving a child junk food. Just because they like it, doesn't mean you should feed it to them every day. I'm in favor of dog foods with REAL meat as the first 3 ingredients, no grains, and giving them whatever veggies they like. My dog loves broccoli. So I suppose, technically, he is on a LC diet.

Spaz, cutting down on the amount of dog food and feeding a high protein meat source dog food is what did the trick. The green beans did nothing for your dog - sorry, that's a sad fact. Cutting down on the amount of dog food you were giving cut the calories and helped with the weight loss. Using a high protein meat source dog food helped with the muscle building and the beautiful coat.

If you feed your dog veggies, please run them through the food processor first to break up the cellulose. It takes a couple of minutes, but the benefits to the animal are tremendous. Also, please chose the same high nutrient veggies you choose for yourself.

My dogs regularly get broccoli, zucchini, romaine and lots of other good things mixed with their raw meat. They love it and beg for the romaine when I'm making up my salads.

I do agree with you about feeding grains to dogs. My oldest dog is very grain allergic and I have to watch my mom like a hawk to keep her from sneaking treats to him that are loaded with grains. Grains make him one very sick little guy and I just don't want that. I want him around for several more years.

shortstuff

10lbs in about a month?
It's not even healthy for people to lose 10lbs a month. Well unless it's water of course, but I highly doubt your dog had 10lbs of water on him unless you were feeding a high carb food and it's a huge dog. Like a great dane or something.

Hopefully that was just a typo or something and it took at least a few months. Otherwise, another starvation diet.

I think it was the protein from the food change and the calorie reduction that the the green beans afforded in place of the dog food. Also - my dog is fit and trim at 100lbs - so yes he's big - and the "month or so" would probably have been better said as "We noticed a difference right away and it took a suprisingly short time for him to slim down with the right nutrition."

CurvesSpaz, I think you missed the point here. The green beans didn't do much of anything for your dog. The weight reduction isn't due to the green beans, it's due to the reduction in dog food.

All you had to do was reduce the amount of dog food he was eating and use a high quality protein source. That's it.

Doggie tummies don't have to be kept full, in fact, it's nearly impossible since they will eat 24/7 if you let them. Most of the BARFers I know even fast their dogs one day a week unless they have a sick/injured dog, a pregnant bitch or a lactating bitch. Dogs don't have to fill their stomachs every single time they eat.

To trim them down you just make sure they're eating the best quality food you can give them, cut back on the amount and make sure they get adequate exercise.

BTW, I think you've already found out that unless your dog is an extremely active and/or working dog you don't have to feed anywhere near the quantity listed on the food bag.

Curious about the green beans...do you feed them whole? If so, don't they pretty much come out as they went in?

Anytime my kids have leftover veggies, whole, they usually pass thru pretty much untouched. Especially something like green beans! Grass too! They can't possibly be getting nutrition from foods that pass thru without digestion.

Note my "kids" in this case are my Dobe/Sheperd/Hound litter-mates. Daisy and Duke.

Just wanted to mention that since I've redoubled my efforts with a total meat diet for my chubby siamese he has lost half a pound! He probably needs to lose another 2-3 pounds.

I'm doing a combination of using all meat canned food which I found at Trader Joe's and using raw chicken I grind myself and supplemented occassionally with a bit of Science Diet low carb dry food.

Nancy, how "all-meat" is the canned food at Trader Joe's? I shop there all the time, but I haven't checked out their pet foods assuming that, like other processed pet foods, they still have carbs in them. Ruggles is strictly eating protein and fat. If there's really an all-meat canned food, I might try that for him in a pinch. But one of the things Ruggles gets in his raw diet is ground up bones. He needs those for proper calcium. I'd be concerned that the canned food might be lacking in calcium, unless it's fortified.

Well, look at the ingredients, there are no grains. However all the varities they have are fish, so you might not want it. They do include fish broth, tuna, shrimp, crab, herrings and the like. I do like him eating a large range of foods though, so that's why I supplement with the ground chicken and give him pieces of whatever meat I'm eating.

BTW: These are the teeny cans like Sheba cat food. They do fortify them though, which if you look at the ingredient list it lists the chemicals (aka vitamins) they add. From a link someone posted, I think the Sheba cat food is pretty much all meat as well. I'll look next time I'm at the grocery store. One thing is, all canned cat food that I"ve looked at is fortified with taurine, vit E, thiamine and other things. After reading the article about why you shouldn't feed your cat a diet of fish, I don't think they took into account that most pet food is generally fortified with those missing vitamins and minerals.

My cat is hooked on Carb countdown milk, so I give him a bit of that everyday and that is super high in calcium. It's funny, he never really liked regular milk or cream much, be he LOVES carb countdown.

I was cruising and looking at older threads and just saw this title. I laughed out loud. In fact, I DID try to get my kitty to switch to low-carb!!

She wasn't having it though. Very odd puss, she will lick meat but won't eat it. Even salmon from a can she turns up her nose at!!
Nope, she is hooked on her Technical senior's formula it seems.

She just had her twentieth birthday this spring.

Wow! That's an elderly cat. I'd say if she's lived this long then it'd probably be harder on her to switch diets than to continue what she has been eating.

Some people who switch their cats diets have to do it very, very gradually. You basically start adding water to their kibble until it gets a bit mushy, then start working in a tiny bit of the new stuff.

Me, I was lucky to have two cats that double as vacuum cleaners. They'd eat almost anything.

My childhood cat, Socket, lived to the ripe old age of 21 on a kibble diet (although the last couple years she ate canned food because her teeth rotted away). So some cats do well on carby food.

But, I still think if you have a young cat, one of the best things you can do for it's longevity and quality of life into the future is to feed it raw meat and bones.

That being said, IWillDoIt, congratulations on having your friend with you for so long. Their lives are so short and the longer we can have them with us and healthy the better.

And, Nancy, when I switched Ruggles to raw, I did it in one fell swoop. He protested for about 4 days. But I waited him out and he gave in and tried it and he loves it now. He turns his nose up at carby foods now. So I guess it's different for different cats. Also, Ruggles isn't a vacuum cleaner cat, he can take hours eating his food. But I usually don't leave it out more than a couple hours and less on a hot day.